The Moreira Guest House is a retreat immersed in nature, located just minutes from downtown Athens, Georgia. Nestled within a mature hardwood forest along Barber Creek, the site’s ecological and topographic constraints shaped every design decision. Riparian buffers, the 100-year floodplain, and steep slopes required a light touch, and the building footprint was carefully placed to minimize disturbance, balance cut and fill, and preserve the watershed.
The result is a compact, 26’ x 26’ structure with a low-sloped shed roof—the simplest form found in southern vernacular. A narrow open-grate bridge crosses the terrain to create a dramatic entry sequence without blocking daylight or water flow beneath.
Material selections reinforce the connection to place: dark-stained cypress siding harmonizes with the vertical rhythm of the forest, while locally harvested poplar ceilings extend continuously from the exterior soffits into the interior rooms, blurring the boundaries between inside and out. Corner windows expand into a double-height volume with panoramic views of Downs Creek.
The guest house reduces its footprint at the lower level, where a suite opens directly onto the forest floor. By embracing simplicity, natural materials, and biophilic design principles, this modest retreat achieves a powerful presence—celebrating its ecological context while offering a contemplative refuge.
This project includes two related houses designed for a large family on a North Carolina mountain estate. Our work began with a careful study of a 40+ acre mountaintop property, resulting in a site selection that balanced views, solar gain, and protection from prevailing winds. Viewed at large, the initial challenge of the project was in situating the houses relative to one another. The houses were designed for two different generations of the same family, one with younger kids and the other in retirement. As such, it was important to locate the houses in a way that allowed for connectedness and shared amenities while taking into account each family’s need for privacy and autonomy. We achieved this balance by pulling the two houses apart and bridging between them with a modern glazed structure, the roof of which extends to cover a shared exterior gathering area.
The curtainwall of glass and the large multi-slide door opening onto the views on the north side of the building begin to dematerialize the walls, blurring the distinction between interior and exterior spaces and making the landscape central to the experience of the house. As a gesture toward the natural surroundings, we commissioned Brooklyn furniture maker Mattias Pliessnig to create a wooden sculpture to hang in the double-height space of the rear entry of the house. Lastly, the forms are oriented in a way that promotes porosity rather than obstruction, allowing views through the site to the landscape beyond.
Designed for a young professional couple, their teenage daughter and two golden retrievers, the Honabach House is located on a quiet residential street in Brookhaven, Georgia. The 1 1/4-acre site slopes down from the street to a small creek at the rear of the property. Mature hardwood trees create a beautiful wooded area over the back half of the site.
The project brief called for a 4-bedroom house, with an open kitchen, dining and living room spaces immediately adjacent to large on-grade outdoor entertainment areas. The brief also called for ample storage and mechanical spaces at the lower level. Working with the natural slope of the land, the design locates the bedrooms on the upper, entry level and the entertainment and storage spaces on the lower, on-grade terrace level. The design creates a 2-story house that appears as a smaller 1-story house from the street.
The upper-level bedrooms are organized into 2 parallel forms running perpendicular to the street. The guest room and a home office are positioned on the street side of the forms, and the main and daughter’s bedrooms are on the opposite sides, offering privacy and expansive woodland views. The space between the 2 parallel forms becomes a “see-through” entry foyer, allowing views through the house to the wooded site beyond.
From the upper-level entry an open light-filled stair leads to large terrace-level entertainment spaces with continuous floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a private courtyard space and pool.
This new construction home is on a corner infill lot in the Old Fourth Ward neighborhood. In this home, there is an emphasis on site-specific design and seamless integration of the home with the outdoors. Careful consideration and emphasis of landscape design and elements was a priority here. The very exposed corner lot raised slightly above street level meant that most sides of the home are fairly visually exposed so it was even more important here than normal to insure that no elevation of the home was secondary in design or material. The glass “box” entry addresses the house’s corner condition. A play of varying floor levels in the home provides spatial interest and distinguishes room functions in the home without having to use walls to do so.
Despite large areas of window glass, passive solar design strategies such as very large overhangs, deep inset windows and careful window placement ensure great interior light though with relatively modest solar energy gain. On the side street elevation, a “floating” architectural frame element echoes a similar one on the front but remains open to provide solar protection to a second-floor rooftop deck. A large, architecturally integrated planter separated from the dining room by a seamless glass wall blurs the boundary between indoor and outdoor – bringing a sense of garden connection to a space that is raised well above grade level.
Olympic Place Courtyard House uses an L-shaped typology to create a structure that integrates elements of its cultural context, site, and program into a warm and inviting home for the family that lives there. The L-shape of the house was driven by the location of the existing trees and opportunities for harvesting natural daylight and was embraced because of the transparency it offered when circulation was pulled to the inner courtyard edge of the house. Overhangs along the courtyard are sized to allow for passive daylight, taking advantage of the site’s southern exposure.
The courtyard-facing circulation axes are punctuated at their intersection by a three-story space at the heart of the home. A stair wraps around this opening and enables the stack effect to pull warm air up and out of the house through operable windows at the top. The fireplace is another strong organizing element, rising from the foundation all the way through the cantilevered roof opening.
Stucco, cypress siding, and glass are the predominant materials. Stucco is used to emphasize the weight of the home’s plinth, and glass wraps around the main level of the house to allow the cypress-wrapped volumes to float above. Interior walls are pulled through each level to keep the facade open and the interior spaces legible and consistent through the transparent skin.
In addition to the passive sustainable design strategies described above, a geothermal heat pump system provides air at stable temperatures, minimizing the energy required to heat and cool the home.
The site for this single family residence is located immediately alongside the northern ridge of “El Cerro de Chipinque” in the Sierra Madre Oriental range in the state of Nuevo Leon in northeast Mexico. The house is configured to maximize views of the parallel ridgeline, as well as the dramatic peak, known as La Eme (“the M”), which terminates the eastern vista.
In the configuration of the residence, interior and exterior spaces are defined primarily by vertical planes of concrete, sliding in and out of the house to define interior and exterior zones for living, exploring the themes of Transparency and Penetration.
Secondary forms clad in thinly sliced black granite or contrasting white plaster express more solid and enclosed volumes. The texture and color of the granite alludes to the visible rock peaks of the mountain range looming above. More monochromatic cut stone was used for flooring. Completing the palette of materials, warmer tones of wood are used inside and out which contrast with the coolness of the granite and concrete.
While the wood and stone components are largely expressed as simple cubic forms, the plasticity inherent in concrete is expressed and articulated with more complexity — forming portals, generating negative space, and framing views. The composition is an honest expression of materials, selected to provide a range of textures, and configured to provide a hierarchy of scale.
The project is a modest 1,000-square-foot modern retreat in Scaly Mountain, North Carolina. The project site is a steeply sloping 6 acre ridge parcel that borders the Nantahala National Forest mountain ranges. The inspiration for the house is from Japanese bungalow houses. The planning goals were to embrace and engage the surrounding landscape, capitalizing on the views of ridge line, treetops, and rock face; and to expand the square footage by merging interior space with exterior decks.
The main living space is an open plan living/kitchen/dining area with reclaimed wide plank oak flooring ; the main focus is the window wall and view A glass panel door recesses into the wall opening the kitchen to the perch deck. A large reclaimed wood and iron table rests over the kitchen island and easily rolls out to the perch deck for outdoor dining. The wall opposing the view and ceilings are board and batten black stained pine that are inspired by the Japanese technique of Shou Sugi Ban and balance well with the room’s neutral color palate and saturation of natural light. The finishes are extended in the bedrooms and bath and are furnished minimally with Japanese-inspired bedding.
The extreme slope of the site required thoughtful use of foundation and support posts, braced to stand up to high winds. Windows and doors also had to meet high wind load requirements required by the local codes. A collaboration with our strucural consultant resulted in an integrated solution for the double joist overhangs on the upper portions of the roof that would withstand the wind load.
An additional challenge was to create a high impact property with a limited budget. Less expensive black stained board and batten pine siding was used instead of sho sugi ban charred wood,to create the Japanese-inspired look. Meticulous roofing details were achieved using less expensive material, including corrugated metal roofing that was treated to rust quickly, and outriggers crafted from standard pressure treated lumber. The deck rails were created using pressure treated top cap, hog pen fencing, with flat bar steel supports combined in a modern and surprising way on both decks and the entrance bridge.
The rolling table over the island and multiple tree stump stools configured as a coffee table allow for flexible uses of furnishings throughout the space.
Logistical challenges included building in a remote location and managing the build from afar, understanding that work hours and practices differ in a small mountain town and are highly dependent on unpredictable weather patterns. Modern details are not customary in the region, and were often overlooked or flawed in execution, adding to the overall timeline and cost of the project. The project certainly provided an appreciation of small spaces, and how to maximize their use and efficiency. Perhaps the greatest lesson we learned is to thoroughly confer with contractor references ahead of time to get an up-front understanding of the subs that are planed to use. The client plans to continue to build further on the site.
Designed for a retired professional couple, now an artist and a motorbike enthusiast, the Brenner House sits on a 3-acre property near Newnan, Georgia, 40 minutes south of downtown Atlanta. The wooded site is adjacent to a water reservoir with development restrictions protecting the surrounding watershed. The gently sloping terrain, the reservoir to the south and access from the north, offer ideal conditions for private outdoor entertainment space and panoramic views of the lake.
The design responds to the site and program by placing 4 volumes around a central entry that links the public approach and views to the lake: car and bike garages to the north; guest and living spaces to the south. (Diagram 1). Wrapping the volumes with solid walls and service areas creates 2 L-shaped forms that orient the spaces to the site and define the see-through entry. (Diagram 2). The second floor’s master bedroom and office are contained in a 3rd L-shaped enclosure that sits atop the lower floor enclosures and spans the central entry. An open, cantilevered stair extends the entry to the upper floor and metal roof “hats” define the ground floor volumes from above. (Diagram 3).
